I’m doing in town. Six o’clock, at the bingo hall. Hope you’ll both be there. And here … I’ll give you a few of these fliers to pass out, if you wouldn’t mind.”
The woman didn’t take the fliers, but the boy grabbed the stack he offered.
“Me too? Do I get to come?” the kid asked.
“Sure. This affects everybody in town.”
“What does?” The woman took one of the fliers out of her son’s hand and scanned it. “It doesn’t say here what your seminar is about.”
Dipping his head to her ear, he said in his most confidential voice, “It’s about making all your dreams come true.”
She wasn’t moved. “My dreams have already come true.”
That was a new one, he thought, stepping back. No one had ever told him that. “Then let me show you how to make the most of them,” he said in the mesmerizing tone that had made him such a success. “Let me show you how to maximize your potential and minimize your risk, how to build your fortune the way everybody else in this town is going to, how to make your mark in the world.”
A smile transformed her face, and she met his eyes. “Really? You could do that? I could get rich?”
Now he had her. “It’s practically a guarantee.”
“Wow,” she said, pulling her purse out of a compartment on her bike. “How much will it cost me? I can write you a check right now. Two hundred? Two thousand? Maybe my life’s savings? Do you take debit cards?”
He chuckled, not certain how to take her.
Suddenly, that ditzy smile vanished, and she stood a little taller. “Let me give you a warning, Mr. Brisco, if that’s your real name. Not everyone in this town is fooled by that act. It only takes one person to blow your cover, and I’m the one who’s going to do it.”
His smile crashed. “What makes you think there’s a cover to blow?”
Her cool smile told him there was no doubt in her mind. “I know your kind,” she said. “I knew it the first time one of my neighbors waxed poetic about the new man in town. You’re a two-bit con artist, and you think you can ride into Serenity and milk these people for everything they’re worth. This town has enough problems. I won’t let you do it.”
She turned to walk away. Following her, he said, “You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“What if you’re wrong, and you miss out on your chance to get richer than you ever imagined?”
“I’m never wrong,” she said. “Ask anybody.” Holding her helmet by the chin strap, she headed up the sidewalk.
Logan watched her stroll away from him, her son at her heels. Clearly, she didn’t need or want Logan’s attention. He would have staked everything on the probability that she drew men’s gazes wherever she went. When she reached the hardware store, she grabbed Jason’s fliers and glanced back, as if to make sure Logan was watching as she dropped them into the trash.
Logan grinned. This would be even more fun than he’d thought. He might have to stay longer than he’d planned, just to meet the challenge of the little lady whose first name he didn’t know.
The ladies of the Clippety Doo Dah Salon cackled and fluttered as Logan stepped inside, breathing in the scent of hair spray and peroxide and trying not to cough. “Hello, ladies,” he said with his best grin.
A dozen gals crooned back their hellos and preened with their rollers, their rods, and their teased tresses, as if he could see past them to the beauty that lay just moments away. Across the room, he saw Julia Peabody sitting in front of the hair dryers, where she had the attention of at least five women. Perfect, Logan thought. She had to be talking about him.
“Mr. Brisco!” Lahoma Kirtland called from the sink where she was dyeing the head of Mildred Smith. Abandoning her client, she held her gloved, red-dyed hands up like a surgeon and made a beeline across the shop.
“Please, darlin’. My daddy was Mr. Brisco. I’m just Logan.” He looked around the room. “I was just strolling through town, wondering where all the prettiest ladies were. And lo and behold, I think I’ve found them all right here.”
The women giggled and exchanged delighted looks. “It’s so nice to see you,” Lahoma said. “We were just talking about you, weren’t we, girls?”
“Were you now? Nothing bad, I hope.” He glanced through the arch that separated